


Everafter

by ReyOfStarlight



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6263467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyOfStarlight/pseuds/ReyOfStarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had been through everything; anguish, joy, pain, terror, they had survived it all together, yet one tiny ripple had torn down everything they'd painstakingly built.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everafter

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling pretty angsty and have been trying to get over some writer's block - and ended up with this one-shot. Enjoy!

Cold durasteel restraints cut into her wrists and ankles as Rey came to, squinting against the blinding light flooding down on her. Even before her eyes could adjust to the brightness, she knew where she was; she’d been in such a room years before, but the hardened woman would never forget even a second of the experience. She felt a pang of sadness and regret before her anger flared, her jaw clenching as she stared into the darkness at the far end of the room, looking for the masked knight she _knew_ would be there.  

“You can’t hide from me, _Kylo_ ,” she hissed, scowling as her voice cracked from a lack of water. “You think you’ve hidden your presence, but I will _always_ be able to sense you…” Her hoarse words trailed off as a metallic breath rattled in the pitch black corner and a towering, trim figure emerged from the shadows, a woven cowl pulled over a coal black mask, the chrome outline of the eyepiece glinting in the harsh light focused on her. Rey glared at him, only guessing that he stared back, as his Force aura was startlingly blank. “Take off the mask,” she continued to struggle against the cuffs. “You at least owe me that.”

Had she been able to see the man’s face, she might have flinched at the sneer that had spread across his full lips, the sentiment not quite reaching his eyes. “I owe you nothing, _scavenger_ ,” came the flat, modulated reply, and Rey felt as if she’d just been sucker punched in the stomach.

‘Don’t call me that!’ she thought angrily, unconsciously reverting to their mental communications before she realized that he had collapsed their bond. “How can you say that??” her voice rose, fear and rage ignited a fire in her eyes, but she couldn’t manage to suppress the anguish that exploded through her Force aura. Her lower lip trembled, though Ren couldn’t place whether it was in anger or heartbreak. “Do the last three years mean nothing to you?” she implored, her hazel eyes widening with hurt as she searched the mask of the man who now loomed over her, desperate for any hint of an emotion.

His breathing quickened slightly, and noticing the shift, she tried to skim the edges of his consciousness, straining to find even a flash of emotion, instead finding cold, impenetrable walls thrown up around him. “The last three years were a lie, _Rey_ ,” he hissed, crowding into her space, his mask fixed on her face, though she couldn’t be sure he was holding her gaze. “I was using you to accomplish my goals, just as I’m sure you were using me for the same purpose.” Ren was telling a blatant lie, but he was sure she couldn’t tell; he had walled off his mind so well that even Snoke was no longer able to enter it.

She drew her eyebrows inward, in an expression the raven haired man recognized as one that immediately preceded the tears she shed only in secret. “N-no,” she stuttered, her voice and her confidence faltering, “that’s not true!” Her rational mind told her it wasn’t; he’d been exposed to too many Resistance secrets, even during the first months of their clandestine tryst, and not one of them had ever been used by the First Order. But as he stood in front of her, devoid of all emotion, those nagging doubts and fears of abandonment that he’d silenced after months of tenderness and compassion came rushing back.

Tears began to fill her eyes and cloud her vision as he ignored her desperate search for a reassurance that their entire relationship hadn’t been a lie. “Give me the location of the New Republic’s new base.” He watched defiance sizzle in her eyes for a fraction of a second before the pain at his words extinguished it once more and she hung her head. A single word slipped past his walls and into his mind, so dejected and weak, he barely noticed it, ‘ _No.’_

He chuckled, the mask deepening it to a cruel, menacing rumble. “Now Rey,” he started, “you _know_ I can take _whatever_ I want.” She froze at his threat and drew a shaky breath, and he found that he took no pleasure in the fear wafting off of her, in stark contrast to how he’d once so enjoyed interrogations.

She raised her chin, holding her head proudly in a gesture of resistance. “If you could, you’d have already rifled through my mind and taken it by now,” she shot back, knowing how foolish it was to bait him. She couldn’t resist though, the hurt she felt awakening in her a dark desire to inflict pain back onto him.

Ren was beginning to feel sick to his stomach as he continued to tear the independent young woman down emotionally. “I never said I planned to take it that way,” he husked, closing the remaining distance and pressing his body flush against hers, cringing as he felt her tremble and try in vain to pull away from him. He ran his hands up bare, tan arms, relishing the feeling of his velvety leather gloves against her soft skin. Looking back into her face, the dark knight could tell she was fighting hard to keep her face composed, and tiny tears sparkled on her long eyelashes when she blinked. This was exactly where he needed her. “I’ll stop the moment you tell me,” he murmured softly, stilling a large gloved hand on her hip as if to prove his point.

The exhausted young woman in front of him merely bit her lip and shook her head ‘no’. Rey winced as his hand ran over her ribs, both at the tingling sensation it left behind and the pain that shot through her at the light pressure on the bruises she’d sustained when the Stormtroopers captured her. When he hadn’t showed up at their rendezvous point last week, she’d worried something had happened to him; it had never occurred to her that voluntarily or otherwise, he’d sold her out to his master, Supreme Leader Snoke. She continued to tremble, her breath speeding up in her chest as she blinked back tears with increasing frequency. The hope that he’d free her, tell her he loved her, would free her from the restraints was growing dimmer and dimmer, and feeling her stomach tighten, she began to test her bonds with the Force.

Ren continued to press into her, and as his breathing grew heavier against her, Rey took advantage of his distraction to lightly release her restraints. She allowed one pained sob to escape from her lips before Force shoving him into the wall, _hard._ The sinewy man felt his lungs seize, desperate for air as the wind was knocked out of him, and unable to move, he watched her stalk toward him, her dark cape so like his fluttering behind her. She immobilized him in a force grip. Ren struggled against her, but he knew it was of no use. The young woman had long since surpassed him in her powers.

Anguish written across her face, Rey knelt down, released the clasps on his helmet and lifted it from his head. Finally, _finally_ she looked into the eyes of her former lover, her other half, and the swirling depths of emotion and conflict she found in them nearly knock her off balance.  

Her lower lips trembled and tears welled in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks as she whispered into his ear. “ _I loved you.”_ The young Jedi felt as if her heart might physically break as she opened the floodgates around her mind and let every single one of their happiest memories pour into the room before she stole away, crawling through ventilation ducts to reach her star fighter, slipping away into a volatile nebula before the massive _Finalizer_ could stop her.

The shaken young man knew he’d be punished for losing her, _again_ , but as she vanished into the bowels of the ship, he couldn’t bring himself to move from his slumped position against the wall, even long after the Force grip had vanished. His heart shattered into a million pieces, knowing he’d forever lost the only person who could complete him.  ‘ _I’m sorry,_ ’ he projected, hoping against hope that she hadn’t closed her end of the bond. The deafening silence that answered him told him all he needed to know, and Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, felt hot, bitter tears trickle down his cheeks.     

 

 

 


End file.
